


Intermission - On the Topic of Human Bondage

by writerx75



Series: Stuck [13]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Language, M/M, Minor Violence, Relationship Discussions, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerx75/pseuds/writerx75
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichigo notices that there are certain things that Renji has a strong reaction to, like being surprised, or being touched in certain ways.  When he asks about it, he finds the answer isn't necessarily what he expected...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intermission - On the Topic of Human Bondage

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, All! This is really the start of more plot in these stories, and the Intermissions especially are pretty much all plot. This one covers some tough topics, but I swear the boys work it out. Also, this refers pretty directly to previous pieces, so it's recommended to read these in order. I would apologize to Somerset Maugham for borrowing and mangling his great title, but somehow, I think he might not mind in this case.
> 
> Many thanks to my editor-in-chief, [gwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwoman/pseuds/gwoman) for her work on this piece, and for encouraging me to write it in the first place. [Kari_Izumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwoman/pseuds/Kari_Izumi) was also another voice asking me to write this piece - thank you for your encouragement!
> 
> Note: This series was written before/during the Winter War arc, and I set this story at some vague point in the future when (I assumed) things have gone back (more or less) to normal. Canon continues to be violated, and will be for the remainder of these stories. : )
> 
> Disclaimers: I don't own these characters and don't make any money for these writings; I'm just creating these stories to entertain myself and (hopefully) you.
> 
> The people in this story are fictional, and so you might see them doing things that aren't strictly safe from a sexual standpoint. You are a real person, so please be safe when you play! If you want more information about how that all works, please look [here](http://www.scarleteen.com/article/sexuality/safe_sound_sexy_a_safer_sex_how_to) or here...or there are plenty of other sites with good info on the web, too, so check them out and be safe.
> 
> Oh, yes, one more thing. All of the people depicted (or referred to) in sexual situations in my stories are intended and considered to be by the author of the legal age of consent in any jurisdiction, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from. OK?

It was a few little things Ichigo noticed at first, things that seemed a bit strange. Like the fact that it was a bad idea to quietly come up behind Renji and touch the back of his neck. They'd been house-sitting at Ichigo's family's home the night he discovered that, when Renji was zoned out watching TV on the couch. Ichigo had gotten up for something and come back to discover the redhead with his chin just about on his chest, eyes closing. Smirking to himself, Ichigo had gotten close enough to just brush his fingers over that tempting flesh when suddenly everything moved.

It was a split-second later that he had found himself off his feet, pulled over the back of the couch with Renji hovering over him, red eyes ferocious.

“What the fuck?” Ichigo remembered asking, more put out about the fact that Renji had gotten the drop on him than anything.

Renji had blinked and moved back then, dropping the hand that Ichigo hadn't noticed was near his throat. The redhead looked shaken as he sat back down.

“Sorry, Ichigo, I...uh...fuck, you just caught me by surprise,” Renji had said, not really looking at him.

Ichigo had laughed and moved so that he was sitting on the couch and heaped up some pillows behind him. “Don't worry about it. It's my fault. I can't imagine how you got the better of me like that,” he had said, smirking at Renji, expecting him to take the bait.

Instead, the redhead had just stared at him for a moment, an uncertain look, before he attempted to smile. The attempt had looked so painful that Ichigo had leaned over and smacked Renji in the shoulder to get him to lighten up, which seemed to change the smile into a smirk. The two of them had gone back to watching television, but an odd feeling seemed to linger in the air for the rest of the evening. Renji had been so careful with him that night. Something inside Ichigo had been annoyed, wanting to flip their positions and take the lead, but the worried, repentant look on the redhead's face had stopped him. Well, that and the fact that what Renji was doing had felt so good that after a little while Ichigo hadn't been able to focus enough to think about doing anything other than clutching onto him and writhing underneath him.

One of the other things that Ichigo found odd was Renji's insistence that he didn't want to be tied up. Not that he'd ever pushed the redhead, but he couldn't help thinking about it on the times when they sparred and he'd somehow managed to pin Renji down or push him into a confined space. It hadn't happened often; Renji seemed to have an amazing ability to avoid it. But on the few occasions it had happened, Ichigo remembered that the expression on the redhead's face had become something unlike anything he was used to seeing. His eyes would take on this feral look, as if he wasn't actually seeing Ichigo anymore, and he would fight like his life was in danger until he was back in the open. When he was in the clear once more, he would seem to come back to himself a bit, and his face would take on this expression that was somehow guilty, upset, apologetic, and sheepish at the same time.

It wasn't something that Ichigo had given too much thought to, figuring that everyone had their quirks (especially in their line of work, as it were), until one night in particular. That evening had been fairly ordinary; they'd gone out with some of their friends from the living world as well as a few soul reapers who'd been in town visiting. Everyone had had a few drinks and seemed to have a good time, but the two of them had managed to slip away early because it had been about a month since they'd seen each other and they had some catching up to do.

Later that night, long after they'd drifted into a satisfied and exhausted sleep, Ichigo woke up because he was thirsty. When he came back to bed he found that Renji had rolled onto his side and wasn't far from the wall, so he slid in behind the redhead, wrapping himself around the larger man. Ichigo sleepily breathed in Renji's scent as he buried his face in the redhead's hair and tightened his hold on his lover, wondering why it was usually Renji holding onto him like this and not the reverse. It was just as he was starting to slide off into sleep again that he got his answer. Suddenly, Ichigo was almost ejected from the bed as Renji thrashed once then ended up crouched near the head of the bed, eyes glittering in the moonlight through the blinds, his gaze filled with equal parts wildness and confusion.

Ichigo's gut reaction was to shout and ask Renji what the hell was wrong with him, but seeing that look again on his lover's face stopped him. After a few moments, Ichigo could see realization sneak into the redhead's expression before he sighed, got a terrible, guilty look on his face, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Sorry, Ichigo,” he finally said, the words muffled by the hand he was rubbing his face with.

Ichigo waited carefully for a few minutes, shifting so that he sat on the bed near Renji, but not too close. When he saw that Renji hadn't begun to speak and hadn't looked back at him, Ichigo spoke.

“So,” he started, quietly, “do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Renji said quickly, but then Ichigo could see the ghost of a smirk on his face as the redhead turned to look at him. “Not really,” he continued, “but I guess I'd better.”

Ichigo watched as the redhead turned away slightly to look at the floor, obviously thinking. He could see the furrows as Renji's tattooed brows drew together, and watched the other man's mouth open a couple of times, as if he wanted to begin but didn't know how. Finally, after Ichigo was almost convinced that he wasn't going to say anything, Renji's voice emerged, low and sounding somehow far away.

“I'm not sure how old I was when I...got to Soul Society,” the redhead began. “I think I must have died when I was pretty young. All of my memories are of that place, even the earliest ones. I didn't hook up with my group of friends until I was a little older; when I was really young, all I remember was being on the streets, thirsty and dirty, trying to stay dry when it rained and warm when it was cold.”

Ichigo's heart felt like it flipped over as he saw the furtive glance that Renji shot him. The redhead looked guilty, ashamed, and anxious, and Ichigo was suddenly very clear about why he'd only ever heard a couple brief mentions of anything that had happened in Renji and Rukia's shared past, despite all the time the three of them had spent together. Ichigo turned towards Renji then and nodded, wanting to encourage the redhead to continue but worried that touching him might not be the best thing to do. Renji seemed to sense his movement even though he wasn't facing Ichigo and continued speaking.

“It's funny, though. When you're really young, I think your memories aren't made the same as they are when you're older. I think they get stored differently. I don't know, maybe because that's when you're learning things that will help to keep you alive. It doesn't seem like something you can think back about and remember like something that happened like last week. It's almost like it gets stored in your body like an instinct, so that the recall is automatic.”

He sighed and ran his hands through his loose hair, his face a combination of frustration and hopelessness, still refusing to look at Ichigo. “At least, that's the only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense. I can remember fighting a lot, having the shit kicked out of me a bunch of times when I was a kid, but I can't remember the one that makes me so fucking freaky about being tied up or held down,” Renji continued, shooting a look at Ichigo that was somehow both hard (almost as if saying, “That's what you wanted to know, right?”) and pleading (as if willing his lover to understand what he was trying to say) at the same time.

“The most I've ever been able to remember has been just...the feeling, really. No sight and no sound, just the sensation of being held down from behind so that I can't move and being hit hard again and again, as if it would never stop. I don't know anything else about what happened, but I'm pretty sure it nearly finished me.”

Renji stopped then, staring at the floor, and Ichigo just watched his lover for a moment, feeling sick at the idea of what had almost happened, how they had almost never met. He wanted to touch Renji so badly, to say something reassuring, but Ichigo held himself back, sure that the redhead hadn't finished speaking yet.

“So, that's why I'm never going to be able to do anything like that with you. I'm...damaged, I guess,” the redhead said, continuing to look at the floor.

Ichigo snorted in response, without even thinking about it. “Sounds reasonable to me, given what happened. Why do you think there's something wrong with that?”

Renji just stared at Ichigo for a moment then, obviously stunned to the point that he'd lost his place and didn't know what he'd been planning to say next.

“So, I’m guessing people gave you shit about this?” Ichigo said, low and even, trying to get the redhead talking again since he sensed there was more.

Running a hand over his face again, Renji answered with a sigh. “Yeah, I actually lost two different lovers over this crap during my academy days,” he said, watching Ichigo out of the corner of his eye.

Ichigo resisted the urge to cheer about his own good fortune and instead tried to keep his expression sympathetic.

“Kimiko, well, she was obsessed with the idea, and when I kept refusing she eventually broke things off so she could find someone who was interested in bondage. I told Ryou no, but he thought he’d surprise me one morning by tying me up after I passed out drunk at his place the night before. He was the one who ended up surprised, though, because before I really realized what I was doing, I was free and the bed was broken. It didn’t go over well. They both told me, in so many words, that I was being a fucking baby.” Renji was looking at the floor again, brow furrowed as he remembered.

Hearing Renji talk about other people he'd dated brought an odd feeling into the pit of Ichigo's stomach, since it wasn't really anything they'd discussed in detail before. Also, if he was honest with himself, Ichigo would admit that part of it was because he had never had a lover beside Renji. Sure, he'd dated other people and fooled around with some of them before he and Renji had gotten together, but a lot of the things he'd done with the redhead he'd never done with anyone else. At the same time, though, Ichigo was absurdly pleased that Renji felt he could talk about this with him. Trying to stuff all of those thoughts down so that he could think through what he should do next, Ichigo finally cleared his throat.

“That sucks. Sorry to hear it,” he said, keeping his eyes on Renji, wanting to add _I'm sorry those idiots obviously were too selfish about what_ they _wanted to try to understand you, so they just mocked you instead_ , but Ichigo somehow didn't want to say too much, so he just watched for Renji's reaction.

The redhead looked up in surprise as he was jarred out of his thoughts. He shrugged before continuing. “Ah, well, shit happens. I wasn't happy about it at the time, but now I think it's not all bad,” Renji said, leaning over to bump Ichigo with his shoulder.

Renji's smile was a little tight, but since Ichigo could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, he went along with it, bumping the redhead back and causing his smile to widen a bit. “Yeah, maybe,” he replied, smirking back at Renji.

The whole conversation did make Ichigo think about something in particular, however, and after a few moments he couldn't help but ask, “So, if you feel that way about being tied up, why did you tie me up?”

The redhead gave a snort of laughter as he looked directly at the smaller man. “You know, you get very talkative when you're plastered, Ichigo. That's what you said you wanted. You were really detailed,” Renji continued, a wide smirk on his face. “Why do you think I always try to be there when you do any serious drinking? I figure if you're going to tell the world your secrets, I at least want to be there to hear what they are.”

Ichigo was now glad that it was mostly dark in the room, because he knew by the sudden heat in most of his upper body that he must have been blushing like crazy. Still, he couldn't help himself from asking, “So what about the second time?”

“Hmmm...” Renji said, the sound almost like a growl in his throat. “Well, you seemed to like it so much the first time that I thought I'd try it again. That's why I told you to let me know if you didn't want to...but you wanted to keep going.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ichigo couldn't help replying quietly, the heat now rushing lower as he thought about that night again.

They were both quiet for a moment with their own thoughts before Renji turned to face Ichigo again.

“We don't have to do it again if you...I don't know, don't think it's fair,” Renji said softly.

Ichigo lifted his head to look at the redhead and smiled. “No, you're right; I do like it. But you don't. Nothing wrong with that.”

Even in the near dark, Ichigo could see Renji smile in response. “Yeah, nothing wrong with that.”

Lying down in the bed again with Renji sitting behind him, Ichigo turned his face back towards the redhead. “Come on, let's get back to sleep.”

It was so quick that Ichigo could barely catch his breath before Renji was everywhere around him and he was wrapped in those big limbs, warm inside and out. Nothing wrong with that at all.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments about what you liked and what you thought could be improved would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
> 
> -WriterX


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